The exact number of nuclear weapons in global arsenals is not known. With little exception, each of the nine countries with nuclear weapons guards these numbers as closely held national secrets. What is known, however, is that more than a decade and a half after the Cold War ended, the world’s combined stockpile of nuclear warheads remain at unacceptably high levels.

We all are aware of the globally spread atomic weaponry but at the same time we push that knowledge aside. Years after the end of the Cold War most people believe that the threat of a nuclear attack is vanished - secretly hoping that the deconstruction of atomic arsenals will go on until there are none of them left to threat the world.

But as the above-cited report shows there are still thousands of atomic bombs held by the nuclear power states. So we are still living in world that could be “overkilled”, a term referring to the excessive destructiveness of the huge amount of nuclear bombs during the Cold War. We should keep that in mind and NOT push it aside.

When people need a little hint to give them some reflection inputs, the artist Isao Hashimoto – of whom we already showed a fascinating film about all the atomic bombs detonated on earth – holds again a mirror up to mankind. In his film Overkilled he gives us such a hint by illustrating the Hiroshima-bomb (detonated on the 6th of August 1945, killing more than 140’000 people) and the Nagasaki-bomb (detonated on the 9th of August 1945, killing more than 70’000 people) metaphorically as little pellets falling on a glass pane – followed by an impression of the effects the thousands of bombs still in use.